Full Color Photography Art Book: Forgotten Landscapes by Heather J. Kirk
“Forgotten Landscapes” are those that don’t make it into US Board of Tourism brochures or Arizona Highways; those that bus tours drive right by on their way to “greater” destinations. Hardly more than a three minute walk from the roadside, these sights are slept through or talked over or looked past in search of another location. Considered too mundane, or perhaps too obvious, there are no overlooks or guiding signs or safety pull offs to point the way to these quiet places. Yet at 65 mph we cannot notice their beauty, or for some, even their presence. These “Forgotten Landscapes” require us to risk stopping on freeways and thoroughfares, slipping down drainage ditches, sidestepping snakes and burrs and thorns, or sinking deep into mud. They insist we slow down. And when we finally do slow down, we suddenly see their desolate beauty.
Within the larger context of “Forgotten Landscapes,” I include various sub series: the remains of Joshua Trees after a fire; abandoned icebergs left on farmlands after an ice break and a river flood; broken cat tails in a pond fed by distant mountains; and dried sunflowers standing alone in a fallow field with the obligation to seed, to bring life out of death. These are the places I explore through black and white photography, beckoning people to notice, and see again, starting with a distant highway view, drawing them out into the field, and finally revealing up close what they almost missed…each series ending in a “portrait of nature.”
22 pages / 34 images - All Copyright Heather J. Kirk
